The Luminous Face

The direct glance that accompanied these words discomfited Davenport a little.

“Why do you ask me that?” he said, shortly. “How should I know?”

“Oh, it’s a thing anybody might know – even a mere acquaintance. And your desperate hurry to get away makes me think you don’t take kindly to this catechism.”

“Rubbish! I’m a busy man – a doctor sometimes is. I’ve numerous and important engagements for the evening. Now, if that’s incriminating, make the most of it!”

“Fie, fie, don’t get peeved! Now, tell me once again, what the injured man said to your nurse and I’ll let you go.”

“I don’t know the exact words. I’ve not seen her. But he called my office, said he was shot, and for me to come right here and quickly. That’s all I know of the message. Now as to my report – it’s that the man received two shots – whether by his own hand or another’s. One, in his left shoulder – and another – the fatal one – through his temple, producing instant death. You can get me at any time – if necessary. But I don’t want to be hauled over here, or summoned to headquarters to repeat these facts. I’ll send a typed report, and I’ll do anything in reason – but I know how you detectives mull over things, and how your slow processes eat up time – which though it seems of little account to you, is mighty valuable to me.”

“Yes, sir – yes, sir. Now if you’ll speak to Inspector Gale a minute, you can go.”

Grunting an assent, Davenport waited for the Inspector to finish writing a bit of memorandum on which he was busily engaged.

The doctor was sitting in a big easy chair, and as he squirmed impatiently, he felt something soft beneath his heavy frame.

Feeling about the chair cushions, he found it was fur, and a fleeting thought that he had sat on a cat passed through his mind.

A second later he knew it was a fur strip, probably a neck piece, doubtless belonging to some woman.

Now, the doctor had a very soft place in his heart for the feminine sex in general, and his mind leaped to the idea of this fur, left there by some indiscreet girl visitor, and the possibility of its getting the doubtless innocent young lady into a moil of trouble.

Also, he had a dim, indistinct notion that he recognized the fur, at which he had stolen a furtive look.

At any rate, unseen by the Inspector or either of his two colleagues present, Davenport adroitly slipped the small fur collar into his capacious overcoat pocket, and sat, looking as innocent of duplicity as a canary-fed cat.

“Now, Doctor,” and Inspector Gale frowned importantly, “this may be a simple case of suicide, and again it may not. So, I want your opinion as to whether it is possible that both those shots were fired by Mr Gleason himself.”

“Quite possible, Inspector, and, it seems to me, decidedly probable, as I cannot see how the victim could have telephoned, with a murderer in the room.”

“That’s apparently true, but we have to think of even the remotest possibilities. If the murderer – granting there was one – had been merely intending to frighten his victim, maybe a robber, he might have been – and if after that call for help, the intruder finished off his victim – oh, well, all these ideas must be looked into, you know. The case is not entirely clear to me.”

“Nor to me,” returned Davenport, “but I cannot feel that I can help you in your deductions. Answering your questions, I say it would have been quite possible for Mr Gleason to have fired those two shots himself. You see the first one hit his left shoulder, leaving his right arm available to fire the second shot.”

“Why did he merely maim himself first?”

“Heavens, man! I don’t know. Missed aim, perhaps – or, just shooting for practice! Such questions make me mad! If you want any more medical statements, say so – if not, for goodness’ sake, let me go!”

“For goodness’ sake, let him go,” repeated Prescott, and Dr Davenport went.

“Some mess,” Prescott said, after the doctor’s angry footsteps tramped down the stairs.

CHAPTER III – The Lindsays

“You’re sure no one in this building knew Mr Gleason any better than you two did?” Prescott asked of the Mansfields, as he put them through a course of questioning.

“Oh, no,” Mrs Mansfield informed him, volubly, “and we didn’t know him much, but being on the same floor – there are only two apartments on each floor, we saw him once in a while, going in or out, and he would bow distantly, and mumble ‘good-morning,’ but that’s all.”

“You heard no noise from his apartment, during the last hour?”

“No; but I wasn’t noticing. It’s across the hall, you know, and the walls are thick in these old houses.”

“Was he going out, do you think?” asked Jim Mansfield, thoughtfully. “He always went out to dinner.”

“Probably he was, then. It’s evident he was dressing – he was in his shirtsleeves – his day shirt – and his evening clothes were laid out on the bed.”

“When did it happen?”

“As nearly as I can make out, he telephoned for the doctor about quarter before seven. He must have expired shortly after. As I figure it – oh, well, the medical examiner is in there now, and I don’t want to discuss the details until he gets through his examination. It’s an interesting case, but I’m only out for side evidence. What about Gleason’s visitors? Did he have many?”

“No,” offered Mrs Mansfield, “but he had some. I’ve heard – well, people go in there, and he was mighty glad to see them, judging by the gay laughter and chatter.”

“Oh – lady friends?”

Mrs Mansfield smiled, but her husband said quickly, “Shut up, Dottie! You talk too much! You’ll get us involved in this case, and make a lot of trouble. He had callers occasionally, Mr Prescott, but we never knew who they were and we’ve no call to remark on them.”

“Well, I give you the call. Don’t you see, man, your information may be vitally necessary – ”

Here Prescott was recalled to the Gleason apartment.

The medical examiner had concluded his task. He agreed with Doctor Davenport that the shots could have been fired by Gleason himself, though, but for the locked door, he should have thought them the acts of another person. The presence of powder stains proved that the shots were fired at close range, but not necessarily by the dead man himself.

Still, the door being locked on the inside, it looked like suicide.

“No,” Prescott disagreed, “that doesn’t cut any ice. You see, it’s a spring catch. It fastens itself when closed. If an intruder was here and went out again, closing that door behind him, it would have locked itself.”

“That’s right,” assented Gale. “So, it may be suicide or murder. But we’ll find out which. We’ve hardly begun to investigate yet. Now, we must let his sister know.”

“It’s pretty awful to spring it on her over the telephone,” demurred Prescott, as Gale started for the desk.

“Got to be done,” Inspector Gale declared, “I mean we’ve got to tell somebody who knew him. How about those men at the Club?”

“That’s better,” consented Prescott. “Just call the Camberwell Club, and get any one of those Davenport mentioned. But, I say, Gale, use the Mansfields’ telephone. I’m saving up this one for fingerprint work.”

“Oh, you and your fingerprint work!” Gale grumbled. “You attach too much importance to that, Prescott.”

“All right, but you let the telephone alone. And the revolver, too. Why, I wouldn’t have those touched for anything! I’ll get them photographed to-morrow. Shall I call the Club?”

“Yes,” grunted Gale, and Prescott went back to the opposite apartment.

“Sorry to trouble you people,” he said, with his winning smile, “but if you object, say so, and I’ll run out to a drug store.”

“None around here,” vouchsafed Mansfield, looking a little annoyed at the intrusion, however. “Isn’t there a telephone in the Gleason rooms?”

“Yes; but I don’t want to use that.” Prescott had already taken up the Mansfield receiver. “Please let me have this one,” and a bright smile at Dottie Mansfield made her his ally.

Getting the Club, Prescott asked for the names Davenport had supplied. Only one man was available, and Mr Harper was finally connected.